“Justice is not a static ideal; it is not the maintenance of some steady state in society. The accent in biblical justice falls on positive action, the exercising of power to resist the oppressor and set the oppressed free. This is why Amos pictures justice as a thundering river that than as in the Western tradition, a neatly balanced set of scales [Amos 5:21-24].”
― Christopher D. Marshall, The Little Book of Biblical Justice: A Fresh Approach to the Bible's Teaching on Justice
READ
Executing Grace: How the Death Penalty Killed Jesus and Why It's Killing Us: Shane Clairborne
Beyond Retribution: A New Testament Vision for Justice, Crime, and Punishment - Christopher Marshall
The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row (Oprah's Book Club Summer 2018 Selection) by Anthony Ray Hinton
Just Mercy a Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson
WATCH
Shane Claiborne: Ending the Death Penalty
Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice
Bryan Stevenson: Why we need to abolish the Death Penalty
Anthony Ray Hinton author of The Sun Does Shine.
.Sister Helen Prejean: The human cost of the death penalty and the innocent victims wrongfully put to death.
Just Mercy Trailer
LISTEN
FAITH & QUOTES
“It's impossible to separate our contemporary practice of the death penalty from our history around race and slavery, and specifically, lynching. Where lynchings were happening 100 years ago is where executions are happening today. And that's a haunting and eerie thing. - Shane Claiborne
“Why do we want to kill all the broken people? What is wrong with us, that we think a thing like that can be right?” - Bryan Stevenson
“To a Christian whose belief system is rooted in forgiveness, the death penalty is unacceptable” - Bishop Desmond Tutu
“The death penalty is not about whether people deserve to die for the crimes they commit. The real question of capital punishment in this country is, Do we deserve to kill?” - Bryan Stevenson
“To take a life when a life has been lost is revenge, not justice.” - Bishop Desmond Tutu
“I do not think that God approves the death penalty for any crime, rape and murder included…. Capital punishment is against the better judgment of modern criminology, and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.” - Dr. Martin Luther King
“There are some human rights that are so deep that we can't negotiate them away. I mean people do heinous, terrible things. But there are basic human rights I believe that every human being has. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in the United Nations says it for me. And it says there are two basic rights that can't be negotiated that government doesn't give for good behavior and doesn't take away for bad behavior. And it's the right not to be tortured and not to be killed. Because the flip side of this is that then when you say OK we're gonna turn over -- they truly have done heinous things, so now we will turn over to the government now the right to take their life. It involves other people in doing essentially the same kind of act." - Sister Helen Prejean
“We’re supposed to sentence people fairly after fully considering their life circumstances, but instead we exploit the inability of the poor to get the legal assistance they need—all so we can kill them with less resistance.” - Bryan Stevenson
“With every cell of my being and with every fiber of my memory I oppose the death penalty in all forms. I do not believe any civilized society should be at the service of death. I don't think it's human to become an agent of the angel of death.” - Elie Wiesel
“Justice is never advanced in the taking of human life.” - Coretta Scott King
“This grace does not undo a tragedy or pardon a wrong, but it becomes the first step toward a more hopeful future.” - Shane Claiborne
The death penalty is “an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person that is always inadmissible” - Pope Francis
“In debates about the death penalty, I had started arguing that we would never think it was humane to pay someone to rape people convicted of rape or assault and abuse someone guilty of assault or abuse. Yet we were comfortable killing people who kill, in part because we think we can do it in a manner that doesn’t implicate our own humanity, the way that raping or abusing someone would.” - Bryan Stevenson
“Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.” - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed in retaliation.” - Coretta Scott King
“The reality is that capital punishment in America is a lottery. It is a punishment that is shaped by the constraints of poverty, race, geography and local politics.” - Bryan Stevenson
“Government ... can't be trusted to control its own bureaucrats or collect taxes equitably or fill a pothole, much less decide which of its citizens to kill.” - Sister Helen Prejean
“The more you look at the death penalty, that's where you see that we're actually not killing the worst of the worst. We're killing the poorest of the poor. Where actually one of the biggest determinants of who gets executed is how many resources they have to defend themselves.” - Shane Claiborne
“Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.” - Dr. Martin Luther King